Thursday, Nov 10, 2016, 5:07 pm

Labor Leaders Deserve Their Share of the Blame for Donald Trump’s Victory

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Leaked emails showed that AFT's Randi Weingarten promised to act as an attack dog for Hillary Clinton against another union that had endorsed Bernie Sanders in the primary. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)

Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States. I feel a wild urge to scrub my hands with steel wool and bleach after typing those words—my fingers feel filthy.

If we want to avoid a similar nightmare in the future, we have to parse this election’s lessons and figure out who is to blame—not for cheap point-scoring, but to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again. That means we have to talk about how American union leaders helped hand this race to Trump.

It wasn't on purpose, of course. It’s no secret that a Trump presidency will be absolutely disastrous for labor. A national right-to-work law, Wisconsin's viciously anti-union Gov. Scott Walker as Secretary of Labor, a pro-corporate National Labor Relations Board—all could be in the cards under Trump.

Union leaders wanted to prevent this. But their idea for how to do so wasn't any different from the rest of the Democratic Party establishment: going all-in for a centrist, "safe" candidate like Hillary Clinton at a time when the electorate was hungry for someone who would shake up the political system and who spoke to the pain so many Americans feel.

Labor leaders should have been in touch with this sentiment better than anyone. Their members—whether school teachers in big cities or laid-off factory workers in the Rust Belt—have suffered immensely in the age of austerity. There were warning signs. Unions haven’t released their own internal polling data, but Working America said in January that Trump’s anti-free trade message was resonating in Ohio and Pennsylvania, states hit particularly hard by deindustrialization. On Election Day, exit polls varied widely, but many showed union households voting for Clinton by either slim margins (CNN put it at just 51 percent) or by nowhere near as large a margin as they did for Barack Obama in 2012.

Yet rather than acting as clarion voices cutting through Beltway static to insist on choosing a candidate who spoke to working-class suffering and dissatisfaction with the status quo, labor leaders echoed the myopic vision of the pundits who insisted it was “her turn.”

That the Democratic king- (and queen-)makers would do this is maddening but unsurprising. It's consistent with the party's rightward drift over the last few decades. What makes union leaders' actions so astounding is that they rejected a stalwart champion of their agenda who raged against the billionaire class, walkedpicket lines with workers and spoke obsessively about widening inequality. Instead, they opted for a millionaire former Walmart board member with a checkered past on labor issues whose campaign refused to endorse a $15 minimum wage and couldn’t even muster a tweet in favor of low-wage workers.

Some union leaders’ sins are greater than others’. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), has long been engaged in what education scholar Lois Weiner has called a "public love fest" for the Clintons. As I noted recently, the AFT has given the Clinton Foundation somewhere between $1 million and $5 million under Weingarten for reasons that remain unclear. Her name was floated in some labor circles as a potential Clinton cabinet member.

In July 2015, AFT was the first national union to endorse Clinton—much earlier than the AFT had endorsed candidates in the past and likely over the objections of large numbers of its members who backed Sanders. From emails released by WikiLeaks, we know that Weingarten promised to act as an attack dog for Clinton against another union that had endorsed Sanders in the primary.

Tom Buffenbarger, then-president of the Machinists, even helped secretly move his union’s presidential endorsement up to endorse Clinton as soon as possible—despite the protests of some of the union’s members who preferred Sanders. The Service Employees International Union was all-in for Clinton since the beginning, despite the fact that she refused to endorse a $15 minimum wage that it had made into a national battle cry.

To be sure, not all union leaders blindly went “with her.” The Communications Workers of America polled its members and found rank-and-file support for Sanders. The union endorsed him. National Nurses United (NNU) also played a key role in the Sanders’ campaign. Its executive director, RoseAnn DeMoro, was often on the campaign trail and NNU played a key role in organizing the People’s Summit convergence in Chicago after Sanders lost the primary, where activists debated next steps for the movement that he helped spur.

The American Postal Workers Union, under recent reform leadership, also endorsed Sanders. “Sen. Bernie Sanders stands above all others as a true champion of postal workers and other workers throughout the country,” the union’s president, Mark Dimondstein, said then. “Politics as usual has not worked. It’s time for a political revolution.”

Yet these leaders were in the minority. Why? Most union presidents are far removed from the sentiments of rank-and-file members. Labor leaders like Weingarten hang out in elite circles, seeing themselves less as leaders of social movements whose everyday actions are guided by their members and more as peers of the kind of centrist Washington insiders that made up the top brass of Clinton’s campaign.

Radicals have long argued that American labor leaders are not only isolated from their rank and file, but actually have a set of interests that are distinct from their members. No president wants to see their membership rolls decimated, but they also don’t want to see an empowered rank and file independentlyorganizing actions like strikes or campaigns on behalf of strongly pro-worker presidential candidates. Workers who are empowered to wage fights at work and in politics can also get together with their coworkers to boot conservative, corrupt or incompetent leaders out of office. And if labor is going to avoid such astronomical blunders as Trump’s victory in the future, rank-and-file workers will have to lead the charge against their Clinton-backing leaders.

It will go down as one of the great ironies of American political history: faced with a moment of record inequality and searing economic pain, a deeply unpopular, wealthy demagogue told voters he understood their misery and would reverse it. To take him on, leaders of the organized working class opted for the candidate whose ties to Wall Street were far stronger than her support for labor and argued that things really weren’t that bad out there. To do so, they rejected a wildly popular, diehard union-backing economic populist, thinking the centrist was the safe bet. She wasn’t. Now, the working class will pay the price.

Full disclosure: In These Times staff are members of the Communications Workers of America, and the union is a sponsor of the magazine. Sponsors play no role in editorial content.

Micah Uetricht is a contributing editor at In These Times and is a former associate editor and editorial intern at the magazine. He is an associate editor at Jacobin, the author of Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity, and has written for the Nation, the Chicago Reader, VICE News, the Guardian and elsewhere. He previously worked as a labor organizer. Follow him on Twitter at @micahuetricht.

Are you even aware of Workers Memorial Day, Sam Nathan? Have you ever attended a service? Do you know the number of workers who die on the job each year is fewer than 5,000 now -- not tens of thousands? You, clearly, don't have a clue. You don't know what you are talking about.

Posted by Stack on 2016-11-28 12:55:24

Who the hell are you, Sam Nathan? When have you been to the USW? How dare you accuse labor leaders of what you just did. Where's the proof? Proof please?

Posted by Stack on 2016-11-28 12:51:18

Again, this is BS. The president of the USW is paid about $25,000 more a year than the highest paid Steelworker. And no USW president tells a steelworker how to vote. Not USW president told a steelworker to vote for Hillary or Bernie in the primary. Hillary won. That's it. That's the fact. Bernie lost.

Posted by Stack on 2016-11-28 12:49:26

I'd like to mention that the NYC Transit Workers' union also stood bravely with Sanders!

Posted by another1 on 2016-11-17 21:05:59

Exactly why did the AFT give 1ml to 5ml to the Clinton Foundation, perhaps there needs to be an investigation.

Posted by countykerry on 2016-11-15 03:31:52

We don't have this problem in the IWW. We have a couple employees we pay barely living wages to, and our constitution prohibits theunion getting in bet with politicians.

Posted by Belynda on 2016-11-14 14:00:54

I am so sick of this stupid meme. It falls on its face because it utterly lacks logic. Here is the key line: "That the Democratic king- (and queen-)makers." There are no king or queen makers here. This is a democracy. No union leader can force members to vote one way or another. An endorsement by a union leader doesn't make a vote by a member. The endorsement by Weingarten didn't force any of her members to vote for Clinton. They were all free to vote for Bernie. But not enough of them did to give him the nomination. Sorry. That's the way democracy works. However, I might point out, while you slam union leaders for their support of Clinton, she beat Trump, big time in the popular vote. Big time. She actually did win.

Posted by Stack on 2016-11-14 11:22:06

Terrific post--I am not a union member but was raised in a rust belt tow where me and most of my friends were the children of factory workers. It is sad that so many union members had to make such an awful choice last Tuesday. My heart goes out to them.

Posted by Brian McKeever on 2016-11-13 18:52:59

The AFT did extensive membership polling, Clinton was the clear choice - something like 60-40 - you get in early and play a role in setting the agenda or wait until the end, not play a role and probably not make an endorsement. Would Bernie have defeated Trump? or, would it have been a McGovern-like loss? We'll never know. My union, the NYC local sent endless busloads of members into Pennsylvania to knock on doors, English and Spanish speakers, phoned into Ohio, thousands of members flocked into phone banks, retirees in Florida provided a daytime army of volunteers.

From what I understand teachers voted 80 plus percent for Hillary.

I agree that for too many unions political involvement is not part of the day-to-day work of unions. Too claim that Weingarten only deals with the "elites" is nonsense, her schedule of meeting with rank and file teachers is incredible. In the meeting I attended, along with hundreds of other members, the first member she recognized to for a question was an avid Bernie supporter.

I know a few Bernie supporters who refused to participate in the election and voted for Jill Stein. For me: foolish.

Traditional blue collar union jobs will continue to erode, the nature of a changing work force. The union movement has not been successful in organizing auto workers in the South.

The AFL-CIO has to adapt to the world of social media, use electronic platforms, interactive social media, not assume members will rotely follow union endorsements.

I agree, the Hillary campaign, and no one else, including the pollsters, predicted the outcome. TV ads no longer win elections, you win elections voter by voter. It is grueling and essential work.

Posted by edintheapple on 2016-11-13 12:59:01

'...this election was about truth. It was about ethics."

Bullshit. It was about racism, overt and covert.These were the same people calling for Obama's birth certificate and questioning his ancestry. They backed away from his administration, not the other way around. Yet he brought us all closer to new prosperity than we have been in 40 years. And these voters distanced themselves from him and the party, leaving it vulnerable to infiltration from corporate interests.

Posted by smallbear on 2016-11-12 12:12:59

At least we can be grateful the era of Clintonism is over.

Posted by anyone2 on 2016-11-12 11:50:38

At least 30% of Hispanics voted Trump even after he called one a "Mexican" just horrible.

Posted by Ralph Cruzan on 2016-11-12 10:15:08

You nailed it. Your point that we need to go to the points of "what exactly we want to accomplish" for everyone, and how we can achieve that, is exactly right. I told Hillary over and over and over again, that if she did not double down on the Sanders Platform and let people, all people know that together we could achieve much of it, she would lose. (I'm pretty sure there must have been hundreds of us being blocked from getting our messages through to her by her own staff.) And that was exactly what happened. She was not "reaching" the minds and hearts of real, hard working class people, and she never will until she learns this lesson. Period. Living life as a blue dog will never bring change. People saw that very clearly.

Posted by NJHope on 2016-11-12 09:01:38

If I can make some points here without being "blocked", hopefully we can discuss it. In fact, you simply have not recognized how much regular blue collar working families are made up of "color" and a good chunk of them still voted for T-Rump.

For them as well as 52% of the Democratic Voters who normally vote with the Democratic Ticket, this election was about truth. It was about ethics. We/they did not have that choice this time, so they just plain went rogue. Had there been the Ethical, Moral CHOICE of Mr. Sanders on the ticket, none of this discussion would be happening. The rest of us voted for Hillary out of the desire to stop the orange guy. But those working class folks were angered by the sickness at the Democratic Party and its fraudulent behaviors, plus its UTTER LACK of recognizing them as people who matter. Just because people are classified in a POLL as "uneducated", does not mean they are stupid. It only means that "most" of them never got that college level time on the books. Many have some college, but not a degree. This is the truth. It is now understood more and is being discussed. But you're still going to see a continuation of those with MONEY, totally ignoring these facts. They do not want to lose their positions of power.

We need to kick those Leaders out of the management of the "Party" and start fresh.

Support Keith Ellison for Chair of the DNC!

Posted by NJHope on 2016-11-12 08:56:14

Without the unions, workers have no voice. But only by voicing their concerns within the union, will they progress.

Posted by smallbear on 2016-11-12 07:45:22

I can't get away from the fact that no candidate (not even Bernie, as far as I know) had a thing to say about death on the job. Some guy named Mohammed shoots a few people, and the right wing screams that it's time to go to war and kick out all the Muslims. Tens of thousands of workers die from their jobs and the left says nothing.

Posted by sam nathan on 2016-11-12 02:55:01

I've been wondering for years how the unions can go all out for the Democrat and get next to nothing in return. What have the Dems done for labor since OSHA was passed in 1970 or so? I've talked with some of these labor leaders--and got ignored when I tried to talk to others--and I was thoroughly unimpressed. Nice offices and cars and golf with their corporate buddies.

Posted by sam nathan on 2016-11-12 02:48:13

I've often felt that, in some ways, workers would be better off without the unions. That is, if the workers just took things into their own hands w/o the "leadership" putting on the brakes.

Posted by sam nathan on 2016-11-12 02:43:52

Though I agree with you on obstruction in the end the problem was Trump told folks he cared. We both know he is a liar and thieve but to people who see their way of life going going the drain he appeared to be a life saver. Yes our party platform looked great but in the end who visited these people? Trump who spoke to them the most? Trump. I always resented the massive attention given to how bad Trump was. I ask why we did not focus on the things we were going to do for Americans?In essence Trump outsold us. Hindsight is 20/20 but we would have been better off with Bernie all he ever did was talk about what he was going to do not how bad Trump was.

Posted by Ralph Cruzan on 2016-11-12 00:21:13

Labor leaders who are paid six-figure salaries are going to identify with others in their class, not with the rank and file of their unions. For them, the "enemy" is defined as left-wing critics within the unions. Management people are seem as respected colleagues.

Posted by Mischling2nd on 2016-11-11 22:08:53

I am sick of this meme. Did labor leaders force members to vote for Hillary in the primary? Uh, no. More importantly, did labor leaders force members to vote for Trump in the general. No. Members chose Trump. They jumped in his lap. They told one TV reporter after another how much they loved the guy and would never vote for a woman.

Posted by Barbara White Stack on 2016-11-11 21:51:41

The Democrats & Obama did not do well keeping factories open for "those pesky rank and file members", because they were constantly blockaded by the Republican House and Senate, who obstructed everything Obama tried to do. Rather than give him credit for trying to turn things around, which he somehow managed to do in spite of them, the 'pesky rank and file members" were on the sidelines, taunting Obama for his birth certificate and his faith. Progressive pressure on Obama to stop the TPP was gaining traction. With a little support from the 'pesky rank and file members" that might have come about a bit sooner.This election was NOT lost due to economics. It was pure racism.

Posted by smallbear on 2016-11-11 19:30:55

Sounds like it's time for a revolution within the unions. Aren't they supposed to be a democracy? If you want the union to work for you, you've got to put in some time and sweat, an make sure it is. If the leaders are not working for the rank-and-file, then toss them out, bodily, if necessary.

Posted by smallbear on 2016-11-11 19:22:04

The Democrats & Obama did not do well keeping factories open for " for those pesky rank and file members"."Those pesky rank and file members" voted for Trump hoping to get manufacturing jobs back. I was in local 819 of the Brooklyn - Queens electricians union 1070's.Yes, as decision making becomes more distant from the workers, the Union's power wanes.Cheap immigrant labor did the rest.

Posted by traindoc on 2016-11-11 19:02:20

Trump’s election is a green light for anti-bigots, anti-immigrant racism and union busters. Trump is going to make even more hateful appointments and policies because the Democrats nominated an unelectable rightwing candidate who was rejected by millions of radicalized youth, including Black Lives Matter activists and former Sanders supporters who abandoned him and the DP when he, as expected, abandoned them in favor of another Clinton.

This is the third night of continuing mass demonstrations which spread to new cities and are growing. Built by social media and networking with cells, they are remarkable for their spontaneity, solidarity and the breadth of communities and movements involved. The base of anti-Trump forces will grow even larger as it becomes clear that he cannot make good, and doesn't want to make good, on his promises.

The natural instinct of the demonstrators is absolutely correct - to build a mass movement around every rightward step of the Trump regime, and there will be many. Mass action is the way to win. Bogus involvement in the DP attempts to reform it and the RP are the way to lose.

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2016-11-11 18:21:03

The problem, I think, was not so much the choice of personel to lead the fight, but rather the marching orders. The problem was that Dems failed incorporate the policy concerns that were Bernie's focus. They continued their corporate agenda & failed to address the concerns of white working class voters, especially voters in the Rust Belt, which is where the election was lost & won. Donald Trump offered concrete solutions on both NAFTA & outsourcing jobs which hold enormous appeal to the working class voters hit hardest by both.

I'm not suggesting Trump didn't also win by presenting a racist, misogynist platform that appealed to conservative & alt-right voters. He ran, after all, as a Republican. Overt & covert racism & misogyny are a mainstay of the Republican party. I'm also not suggesting white working class voters are any more important than any other segment of the progressive coalition. Young people, people of colour, women, glbtq folks, university-educated & middle class people, and working class white folks are all essential, number-wise & contribution-wise, to the progressive coalition. It's a coalition that ferried Obama to the White House. Twice. If Dems address the internal classism & create actual policy to help those hardest hit in the economy, it's not unrealistic to suggest the progressive coalition could win in 4 years.

Posted by Jamieson on 2016-11-11 17:49:40

I desperately want an apology from them. I doubt we will ever get it. While people were out there using their food and gas money to support Bernie and showing up in the tens of thousands to his rallies because of their passion, our unions turned their backs on the very people they are supposed to represent. I am angry, I was angry before, I am livid now.

Posted by tmare1 on 2016-11-11 08:40:03

The labor elites feel free to decide what they think is best for those pesky rank and file members without their consent, or even real input, in large part because virtually none of them "allow" the members a direct vote for their national officers. They maintain their power by a byzantine process of selecting loyal convention delegates who seldom get in the door without the IU's stamp of approval. As decision making becomes more distant from the workers, the Union's power wanes. To accentuate the death spiral, the distant leaders respond by shifting their interests to more accommodation with other ruling elites, bosses and politicians, who are often waging class war directly on their members. HRC even adopted SEIU's tag line Stronger Together, along with several of their campaign officials. SEIU is the archetype of a Union with leaders like Andy Stern and Mary Kay Henry who sold out spectacularly, but have no accountability to their members or the left they presume to lead, while constantly dragging us into the dead end of the neoliberal orbit.

Posted by Mike Wilzoch on 2016-11-10 23:12:27

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